


Haunted: Not Clickbait

by Autumnalpalmetto



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Friends to Lovers, M/M, Slow Burn, ghost!neil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:14:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23284603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Autumnalpalmetto/pseuds/Autumnalpalmetto
Summary: Andrew Minyard is a normal college grad with a new office job that will let him retire at the average age of 64 years old. It's boring but that's life.When he and his cat move into a new apartment they're forced a live with a roommate they never expected. Maybe life won't be so boring after all.
Relationships: Aaron Minyard & Andrew Minyard, Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard, Nicky Hemmick & Andrew Minyard
Comments: 24
Kudos: 336
Collections: AFTG Reverse Big Bang 2020





	Haunted: Not Clickbait

**Author's Note:**

> My fic for the AFTG Reverse Big Bang is based off of art prompts by [Kiran / Tigerjawed](https://tigerjawed.tumblr.com/)
> 
> I have to thank [Lizzy](https://wishbonetea.tumblr.com/) and  
> [Madison](https://makebelieveanything.tumblr.com/) for beta'ing this for me

Andrew carried the first box into his new apartment in Columbia and set it on the floor. Setting his keys and coffee on the counter after looking around the fairly spacious living room. It would do. It was probably the nicest place he had ever lived, and it was a miracle he found it and could afford it by himself.

The second thing he brought up was the cat carrier. He opened the door and let King out, watching to see how she reacted. She hissed at nothing, running to the corner and hiding behind the box he’d brought up earlier. Andrew left her to acclimate to her new environment as he went to go grab more boxes, waiting for his brother and cousin to show up. They had been following him in the moving truck but stopped to get them all lunch.

On the third trip, King was in the same place, but his cup of coffee was tipped over. It had been nearly empty, so there was no mess, but King knew better than to climb on the countertops. Andrew hadn’t expected her to act out so quickly. After the fourth trip, his sweater was on the floor and there was no way King could have done that, he’d hung it up on the coat hook behind the door. 

Andrew was getting annoyed with his family by the fifth trip, he was hungry and moving by himself after they said they would help was not helping his mood. When he walked in the door, he almost tripped over a box. He knew exactly where he had placed everything and should have been able to avoid hitting anything even without looking, but this box was moved two inches to the right. Perfect recall told Andrew he was right. He looked around the room and took an inventory, nothing else was out of place and King was still hiding in the corner. 

“Wow,” Nicky said as he shoved the door open, “this place is huge. You can afford this on your own?”

“It’s a one-bedroom,” Andrew said, placing the box on top of the other one and shoving them both back into place. 

Nicky turned around with his arms wide. “It’s huge, and it looks pretty new, was it just remodeled?”

“Four years ago.”

“Seriously? In apartment time that’s like brand new! My first apartment hadn’t been updated since before I was born.” Nicky went into the kitchen and started opening cabinets, oo-ing, and aw-ing at whatever he saw in there.

Aaron shoved past him and put the bags of fast food on the counter. “Come eat before your fries get soggy.”

After lunch, they brought the big furniture in. Andrew could do the boxes and little things by himself after they left, but he needed help with the bed, couch, and kitchen table. Despite their strength, carrying furniture with Nicky was not easy due to him being 8 inches taller than they were, but they made it out alive in the end. 

Andrew took them out to dinner afterward, buying them beer and pizza for their help. It was going to be their last family meal for a while; Nicky was set to leave for Germany the next day, and Aaron would be moving across the state to go to med school at the end of the summer. 

They dropped Nicky off at the airport hotel so he could catch his 3 am flight without any trouble and headed back to the apartment. Aaron helped him carry in the rest of the boxes. They worked silently, but their brotherly bond had no problems with that. 

“This is a nice place,” Aaron said, sitting in the middle of the living room floor and waving a string in front of the cat. 

Andrew sat down across from him and grabbed the string. “That’s what Nicky said too.”

“It’ll be good for you to be on your own for a while. Find out who you are and all that shit.”

Andrew raised an eyebrow. “I know who I am.”

“It’s a fucking cliche, I don’t know.” 

Andrew snorted. “You’re a fucking cliche.” 

They dropped off the moving van at the rental agency, and then Andrew took his brother home. When he returned to the apartment, a box of towels he’d left on the counter had been knocked over. He went around the entire apartment and checked everything. The only thing out of place was the sideways box on the floor. King must have been genuinely upset to have climbed onto the counter and shoved it off. Andrew found her under his bed and sat on the floor to coax her out. 

The next morning, Andrew woke up to his cat hissing and batting at the air. Andrew waved his hand through the air above her and picked her up, setting her on his shoulder as she hissed again behind his back. Andrew put a pot of coffee on and it shut right off. He restarted it and it worked just fine for a moment, turned itself off again right as the liquid started dripping.

Andrew put his head in his hands. “I just want some coffee, you stupid piece of crap.”

He spent the rest of the day unpacking his clothes, the kitchen, and the bathroom. Nothing was up to his standards of cleanliness, so he scrubbed each room before he unpacked. The cat followed him around and whined when he shooed her off. Once he got the vacuum out she fled and hid under the bed for the rest of the day. Andrew tried to coax her out when he was finished, but she refused to move.

The next day started the same way with the hissing cat and malfunctioning coffee pot. By the time Andrew finally had a cup of coffee he was ready to go back to sleep. Who knew setting up an apartment alone could be so much work? 

With his coffee in hand, he sat on a box of books and watched the cat climb on top of the bookshelves, then onto the light fixture above them. It looked like a hand appeared out of nowhere, attempting to pet her. After only two days alone Andrew was already seeing things, he chalked it up to moving stress.

Andrew rubbed his eyes and blinked, by the time he took his hand away from his face the cat was hissing at nothing. There was no trace of whatever he thought he had seen. He drank his coffee and looked around the room again. It looked a bit blurrier than it did a minute ago, maybe Nicky was right about getting his eyes checked.

The hand appeared by King again, this time accompanied by a soft and gentle, “kitty kitty.”

“What the fuck,” Andrew said aloud as a full-body appeared to go with the hand. There was a young, attractive man floating a good few feet off the floor, or at least the impression of one, Andrew couldn’t make out any details. The man took two steps back in the air, looking toward Andrew. 

“Can you...” the man said, looking more surprised than frightened. “See me? You can see me!”

He moved closer and held his hand out to Andrew. Andrew looked between the hand, and his face stunned into silence. He was still floating, but closer to the ground, looking almost amused. After a moment of consideration, Andrew held his hand out. It looked like they were touching, Andrew could almost imagine the sensation of touching another person, but he just felt cold. He stared at their hands, touching, yet not.

“Oh,” the man said, deflating slightly. “You can’t feel me. No wonder the cat keeps hissing at me. I just want to pet her. None of the other tenants had pets.”

He was clearly talking to himself as he dimmed and deflated. Andrew wondered if he knew he could hear him.

“I miss my cat. I think she got taken in by the woman next door, but I can’t leave to go visit. That was probably a long time ago. I don’t know.” The image of the man stuttered. Flickering like a strobe light. “I hope she had a happy life.”

The man faded out, and Andrew was left with more questions than answers. The woman who had rented him the apartment had said someone had died there a few years ago and everyone who had lived here since had left because it was haunted. Andrew had never expected it to be true. He’d even gotten a 200 dollar a month rent reduction and no pet fees because no one was willing to live there after the last tenant posted her horror story on her blog. She mentioned items moving around her house, things being knocked over, and a small electrical fire. Nowhere in the blog post had she mentioned a man appearing. 

Andrew closed his eyes and listened, the only sound was the cat climbing down from her post. He looked around the room and tried to picture what he had seen. The image, the apparition had been too dim to recall any colors. Sharp cheekbones and a slight build filled his mind instead. The man’s hair had been darker, and his eyes had been lighter. That’s all Andrew could come up with. For the first time, he was frustrated with his memory for being too vague instead of too specific. 

Sitting in shock Andrew tried to rationalize what he had seen. It had to be stress. Graduating college, starting a new job, moving into his own apartment, losing his cousin thanks to him moving across the world, and adopting a cat was a lot to deal with all at once. He hadn’t been sleeping well either, thanks to the new environment and the cat waking him up earlier than he could have liked. 

When he decided stress was the most logical answer, Andrew packed up his laptop and headed to the local library to do some research on his new apartment. It seemed disrespectful to look up the man in his own home, and his internet hadn’t been connected yet, anyway. Even with his rationalizations, Andrew knew what he saw was real, his brain could not be tricked that easily.

* * *

> Columbia Times:
> 
> The Baltimore Butcher: Nathan Wesninski has finally been killed in a police shootout.
> 
> The police were called to a domestic disturbance downtown last night at around 8 pm. They entered the apartment after hearing screaming at the door. Inside two men and one woman drew guns and opened fire. All three suspects were killed by the police. Luckily only one officer was injured. Reports say Officer Cameron is in the hospital for a nonlife-threatening gunshot wound and is expected to be released later today. 
> 
> Inside the apartment, Police and Paramedics worked to save the life of the Butcher’s last victim to no avail. They have not yet released the name of the victim but it will likely come to light in the coming days.
> 
> The State:
> 
> Nathaniel Wesninski, the missing child from Baltimore, Maryland found dead.
> 
> On June second Police responded to a domestic disturbance call and were met with a shootout. A mob enforcer, Nathan Wesninski, from Baltimore made his way down to Columbia with two others. All three suspects were shot dead in the altercation. The Columbia police department is now working with the FBI and Maryland police to close any cases related to the suspects. 
> 
> When police entered the apartment, they found a teenage boy, later identified as nineteen-year-old Nathaniel Wesninski in critical condition. The first responders did everything possible to try to save the teen, but he was pronounced dead at the scene soon after the paramedics arrived. 
> 
> Nathaniel Wesninski disappeared with his mother Mary nine years ago next week. It is unclear at this time where Mary Wesninski is, or where the two have been over such a long period of time. The investigation into their disappearance has been reopened in Maryland, and the Columbia police department is opening an investigation into the teen as well. He was living in the apartment alone under a false identity according to the complex manager. A background check was done when he applied for the apartment and the false identity passed. The police are also looking into the forged documents that were used. 
> 
> The complex manager and all of his neighbors spoke highly of Nathaniel, claiming he was a good, hard-working kid and quiet. It appears he was working at a local grocery store and putting himself through college. Everyone interviewed said that he will be greatly missed. 

* * *

Andrew read a few more articles before he shut the computer down. He’d studied the Baltimore Butcher in school. The story of the serial killer caught thanks to his obsession with his own son, one Andrew didn’t care to remember. Andrew did not care to remember the details of any of the serial killers he had studied but they were all coming back to him thanks to today’s research. An entire unit in college on them, with each one just getting a couple of paragraphs due to the sheer number of them. 

The mother never showed up again, and none of the other articles mentioned that she went missing at the same time. Andrew couldn’t find a record of her death either. 

He closed his laptop and packed it away, walking down the block to a new coffee shop. His new roommate had been murdered just a few days after Andrew moved back to Palmetto for the start of the school year. It was almost a shock that he hadn’t heard of the story then, but then again he never cared much for listening to the news. 

On his walk home, Andrew tried to banish the articles from his mind. The ghost in his apartment would have been just a year younger than him; now he was five years younger. Every year that passed would add another year to their age gap. Killed by his own father for daring to try to get out of what had to be an incredibly abusive childhood. Andrew felt sick, but he forced himself to walk home, anyway.

In his apartment he opened the door to find Nathaniel sitting cross-legged in the middle of his living room, holding out a stick with a feather on the end and playing with the cat. He still looked dull and sullen; he was there, but he wasn’t really. It was like looking at an old sepia photograph instead of a person. 

“Look what I can do!” Nathaniel said with a smile. “I can't touch living things, I guess? But I’ve always been able to move objects. I found this in your room by the way.”

King jumped on the feather and wrapped her front legs around it as he spoke. She managed to get the stick out of his hand and rolled around with her prize. Her collar was turned so her name-tag was at the back, Andrew wondered if that was how Nathaniel figured out the line between things he could touch.

Andrew walked over and sat in front of him. “I’m Andrew.”

“I know.” Nathaniel smiled mischievously at him. “I looked through your mail. And your file cabinet. And everything else.”

Andrew almost laughed. Of course, his ghost had no sense of privacy. “You’ve been a busy bee.” 

“It’s been very boring since the last person moved out.” Nathaniel looked around the room and settled his eyes on the cat. “I like King. She can stay.” 

“What about me?” Andrew asked. “Can I stay?”

“I don’t know yet. You’re weird.” Nathaniel turned and looked him in the eye. His color was starting to return, Andrew could almost make out a touch of blue in his eyes. “No one else could see me. Or hear me. You’re weird...”

His voice trailed off and his image started to blur. Andrew should have been offended that his ghost said he was weird, but he was too focused on figuring out what was happening. Why could he see him when no one else could? And why did he disappear mid-conversation? 

Andrew tried to bring him back with the only idea he had. Names were supposed to be powerful, right? “I looked up what happened in this apartment.”

Nathaniel looked at him with his head tilted and eyebrow raised. He didn’t look like he knew what happened, how he got into this situation. 

“I know who you are, Nathaniel.”

As soon as the last syllable was out of his mouth, the image was gone. There was no slow fade out this time. Nathaniel had gone from half there to nothing in the blink of an eye.

“No.” The disembodied voice was cracking. Gurgling sounds came. Then choking. Nathaniel didn’t appear again. “NO.”

Then a scream filled the air. A horrible, pained scream. 

And then the room went silent. 

Andrew waited a moment but nothing happened. King was frozen too, no longer playing with her feather. 

“I’m sorry,” Andrew said. He tried to make it sound like he was, pushing sincerity into every syllable. “I wasn’t trying to upset you.”

The apartment was eerily silent after Andrew stopped speaking and stayed that way for the rest of the night. The kind of silence Andrew had been craving when he moved in, even King stayed calm. The lack of noise was unsettling now, like something was missing only Andrew couldn’t put his finger on what it was. He managed to finish unpacking and set up his apartment just the way he wanted it. Uncluttered, yet homey. 

Andrew woke up to silence with the cat curled up next to his feet. He wondered if that would be the end of his haunting, if saying his name had been enough to get rid of Nathaniel for good. King walked him to the bathroom, pawing at the door and meowing when he locked her out to take a shower. When he came out of the bathroom, she wound her way around his feet, licking at his damp leg. He picked her up and cradled her, kissing her forehead. She started purring immediately.

Walking into the kitchen, Andrew found all of his silverware dumped onto the ground. That answered that question, Nathaniel was clearly still present in some form. He started the coffee pot, picking up the mess as he waited for it to stop working. For the first time, it brewed a perfect pot of coffee. Andrew looked around the room and waited. Now that he knew about the ghost he was sure that it was the reason the coffee pot had been malfunctioning. Andrew waited for another beat but nothing happened. After pouring a cup, Andrew reached for the sugar, only to realize it was in the garbage. He rolled his eyes and opened the fridge to find that his creamer had been dumped out and the empty container had been placed back in the fridge. 

“I’m sorry,” Andrew called out. He took a sip of his black coffee and sighed. “I promise not to invade your privacy again.”

Andrew closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. Why was he apologizing for invading the privacy of a dead man? Especially when said dead man had gone through all of his belongings and papers to find out everything he could about him. He had been almost positive that Nathaniel did not know how he died last night but after the blood-curdling scream he’d heard, maybe he had remembered something. Andrew forcing him to relive his own death would explain the petty behavior. 

Before leaving for work Andrew started the dishwasher to clean all of the silverware. He stopped by the store on the way home and bought more creamer and sugar, hoping it would be untouched in the morning. The only thing worse than the coffee machine not working, was having to drink black coffee. When he got home, every kitchen utensil he owned was on the floor and the cat was napping peacefully on the top of the bookshelf. 

“Did you see our other roommate today?” Andrew asked her. 

She lifted her head for a moment, then went back to sleep. Andrew unloaded the dishwasher and cleaned up the mess before cooking dinner for himself. His mind replayed awful screams and significantly too much information on serial killers as he cooked. 

Nathaniel didn’t appear again over the next week either, However, Andrew knew he was around. Every morning when he woke up and every night after work there would be a mess to clean up somewhere in the house. It was annoying to clean up everything, but he accepted it as payback for whatever Nathaniel had had to go through with the screaming incident. King was exhausted every evening too, no doubt thanks to the cat toys Andrew found littered everywhere. At least his ghost and cat were able to get along and play well together. 

Andrew tried apologizing again, but it fell on deaf ears. He wasn’t even sure Nathaniel could hear him when he wasn’t visible. There was no way to know if his little ghost was always there just a breath away or if he came and went like the wind. 

Waking up to the sound of silverware being dumped on the floor was startling. Over the last week, Andrew had found a lot of messes but he had never heard a peep. He climbed out of bed, not bothering to get dressed, and silently walked into the kitchen. To Andrew’s surprise, Nathaniel was sitting on the counter, dropping one fork on the floor at a time. He was so focused on his task that he didn’t see Andrew. Andrew crossed his arms over his bare chest and leaned against the wall.

“What would you like to be called then?”

The ghost jumped and flickered out of sight for a moment, before coming back brighter than ever. Andrew could see black hair and ice-blue eyes for the first time. He was suddenly aware of just how much life had been stolen from this kid. 

“Neil.”

“Alright, Neil,” Andrew said slowly. “Would you mind not fucking my shit up in the middle of the night?”

Neil ignored his question. “Where’s your clothes?”

Andrew rolled his eyes. “It’s 2 am, I was sleeping.”

“Oh, I thought you were at work.”

“At 2 am?”

Neil threw another fork on the floor. “How was I supposed to know it’s the middle of the night? Where do you work? What do you do? Do you always sleep in your underwear? Why? Aren’t you cold?”

“That is too many questions way too late at night.” Andrew bit the inside of his cheek as Neil threw another fork on the floor. “Is there a reason you’re still doing that?”

Neil shrugged. “Bored.”

“Have you been bored for the last four years?”

“Have I been dead for four years?”

“Yes.” Andrew rubbed at his eye as the cat rubbed against his leg.

“Then yes.” Neil threw the last fork and looked Andrew in the eye. “It feels like longer than that.”

“You can touch things, right?” When Neil nodded Andrew walked into the living room and motioned for him to follow. He turned on the TV and booted up the Xbox. “If you keep the volume low, you can play all night.”

Neil looked between Andrew and the TV, picking up the controller when he was done. “I don’t know how to play.”

“I’ll tell you what. If you let me sleep and stop making big messes, I will show you how after work tomorrow.” Andrew picked up the cat and walked back into his room without waiting for a reply. 

Neil called after him. “Good night.”

Andrew wasn’t sure if he offered Neil the TV because he was tired of cleaning up his messes or if he felt bad for him. From everything he had read online Neil seemed like he was in a good place when he had been murdered. Andrew knew all too well that some people deserve to die, but a 19-year-old kid just trying to get away from his serial killer father wasn’t one of them. For a dead man Neil had a lot of life left in him, he talked so fast and had so many questions. It was no surprise he was bored enough, and petty enough, to mess with Andrew’s things. 

As Andrew got ready for work he had to deal with the forks, but he was happy to see that that was the only mess in the house. Nothing else has been thrown on the floor, his sugar and creamer had been left alone, and his keys were right where he had left them. 

“Thank you, Neil,” Andrew called out when he left the house. 

He felt stupid calling out to an empty house, but he didn’t want to risk being rude and coming home to something else to clean up. 

After that, they formed an easy sort of cohabitation. Andrew saw Neil every other day or so but he knew he was around more because things would be moved, or the tv would be left on, or the cat would be exhausted and ignore him after a day of running around with Neil. Within a couple of weeks, Andrew was so used to hearing Neil playing video games or watching tv in the middle of the night that he was able to sleep through it. Sometimes Neil would join him when he was eating dinner, and they’d talk about their days. 

Andrew learned Neil had been studying math when he died, so he brought home some of Aaron’s old calculus books. He told Neil a bit about his life, more than he told most people, but not even close to everything there was to know. They stayed away from any topics that may have led to discussing Neil’s status as a dead man, acting like he was just a shut-in roommate. 

When he left the house though, Andrew went into research mode. He spent his lunch breaks researching ghost stories and digging deeper into anything that looked legitimate. There was a man on the other side of the state he seemed like a professional ghost hunter. Medium. Whatever they’re called. Andrew didn’t particularly care about the proper wording, he cared about knowing what was happening in his home. 

The other stories he heard all turned bad at some point. A friendly ghost turning into a proper poltergeist. Andrew supposed Neil was already at that point since he moved things around and bothered him regularly. Yet, it wasn’t as annoying—or even harmful—as other people’s were. He felt stupid looking up ghost stories given the number of blatantly false ones he found, but then he’d find one just similar enough to be true and be reinvigorated for his search. 

One thing all of his sources agreed on was that spirits stayed behind for a reason. Unfinished business of some sort. 

Andrew had no idea what that could be for Neil, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to find out given his bloody past. 

“Neil?” Andrew said as he walked in the front door after work. “Hi King, where’s the other menace?”

The house was eerily silent. Another night without Neil it seemed. As they got closer, these nights were getting farther and farther apart. At a month into his life in his new apartment, he was used to seeing Neil at some point every day. 

Andrew fed the cat and started making himself dinner. A plain chicken breast and a quick salad were all he had the energy to make after a long day. When he was done he settled down on the couch and picked up his book. Neil had clearly been reading it, his page marker was over a hundred pages off. Andrew added Syfy to the running list of things Neil liked that he kept in his head.

He put the book down and turned on the tv, he’d wait for Neil to catch up to him before continuing on, it would be fun to have their own personal book club. Andrew paused his channel surfing as he realized Neil was quickly becoming one of his best friends. Now that everyone was moving away it was hard to keep in contact like they used to, but instead of going out and meeting new people Andrew had found himself a dead man to get attached to. There was no good way for that to end. 

The fridge opening alerted Andrew to the intruder. 

“I can hear you, idiot,” Andrew said as he looked over his shoulder to see Neil bending over and looking in the fridge.

“I’m not doing anything.” Neil slowly closed the fridge and looked over to Andrew with a mischievous smile taking over his face. 

“Sure you weren’t.”

“What’cha watching?” Neil asked. 

He walked, floated, glided. He somehow moved toward the couch and sat down. His legs moved while he made his way over, but since he wasn’t really there Andrew had no idea if it counted as walking. All the thinking about ghost physics Andrew did regularly gave him headaches. 

“Nothing yet.” Andrew handed Neil the remote and settled into the couch. 

Neil always chose the stupidest things to watch. A teen movie about vampires, a children’s movie about aliens, sometimes just infomercials was enough to entertain him. Tonight he settled on a sitcom that wasn’t completely horrible. Andrew chuckled at a few of the jokes, while Neil full-on laughed at them. It was...

Nice wasn’t the right word.

Comfortable.

It was comfortable in a way that Andrew’s life hadn’t ever been. 

Andrew looked over at Neil and caught a glimpse of life in his eye. His chest ached at the sight. Never in his life had he ever mourned someone’s death, and yet, Andrew found himself constantly mourning Neil’s. This kid had an incredible amount of life left in him for a dead man, Andrew knew it would have been infinitely more in his lifetime. 

The cat jumped on the couch and settled down in Neil’s lap. 

Andrew turned back to the TV after the distraction, then quickly did a double-take. The cat was sitting on Neil’s lap. On him.

The cat was not sitting on the couch with Neil’s legs going through her like she normally did when she made the mistake of trying to jump on him.

The cat was sitting on Neil’s lap.

Neil had frozen when she jumped up, a reflex from all the times she had freaked out and hissed after going through his legs. 

“What the fu-” Neil stopped short as the cat moved her head and looked at him. She gently licked his arm. “Andrew. Andrew, I can touch her. I Can Touch Her.” 

Andrew nodded. “I see that.”

Neil reached out and poked Andrew’s hand, pulling back quickly as they both felt the sensation of skin touching skin. 

“Andrew!” Neil yelled, making the cat jump and glare at him. “I can feel you.”

As slowly as he could Andrew reached out and poked Neil’s hand right back. “I can feel you too.”

The next thing Neil did was predictable. He started petting the cat. King settled in and enjoyed it, purring the entire time. 

As the show ended Neil started to fade. King jumped down at the first sign that he was losing his solidity. It took a couple of minutes for him to fade out completely. They were talking about the show and Andrew wasn’t sure Neil even realized it was happening until he blinked at him rapidly and rushed to say goodnight. 

The next morning, Andrew called the medium he’d been looking at online. He needed some solid answers as soon as possible. The closest available date was a week and a half away, and Andrew had to pay double for a last-minute job, but he did it anyway. The lost money was worth it if the man could give him some definite answers.

Over the waiting period, Andrew saw Neil every night. He was getting brighter and brighter with every visit, sometimes he looked completely solid, like a real boy. Andrew took to calling him Pinocchio during those times because he had to remind himself that Neil wasn’t as real as he seemed. It was still rare for Neil to be able to touch him or King though. 

As they hung out together more and more, spending every night discussing books or tv shows, occasionally playing video games together, Andrew started to see patterns. When Neil laughed a lot, he could touch them most of the time. When he was frustrated it was about fifty-fifty on touching them. When he was excited it was a given that he could do anything. 

The more excited he was the more solid he became. One night playing video games Neil got so worked up that he looked more alive than anyone Andrew had ever seen. They had an arm-wrestling match that night. Andrew won, but Neil swore he cheated. 

The night before the medium came Andrew barely slept. He hadn’t told Neil what he was doing because he wanted to get an honest reading of his house, and he was worried Neil would react poorly. The man had to find something, everyone who had lived there since Neil died had had some sort of supernatural experience. However, Andrew had half-convinced himself that he was hallucinating it all. If the man didn’t find anything then Andrew needed to see someone about his problem. 

Neil wasn’t around yet as Andrew took his shower and got ready for the day. That was fairly normal, Neil almost never showed up before breakfast. It was almost like he was giving Andrew some privacy. He still had no idea how much Neil saw or heard when he wasn’t obviously around, or where he went during those times.

The knock at the door came at exactly 10 am, just as the email said it would.

“Hello,” Andrew said, moving to the side and welcoming the short bald man into his home. “I’m Andrew, nice to meet you.”

“Carl,” the man said holding out his hand. “So you think you have a ghost?”

“I know I do.” Andrew led the way to the living room. “I’ve seen him. I’ve touched him. I’ve felt him.”

Carl flapped his mouth like a fish out of water. “You’ve touched him? When? How? What did it feel like?”

Andrew sat on the couch and Carl followed suit. “It started last week and now it’s become commonplace. It just feels like touching any other person in the world.”

Carl opened his notebook and started writing. “Incredible. Tell me more.”

They discussed the previous two week's events in detail before quickly going over everything that happened prior to the first touch. Carl knew the history of the apartment and didn’t much care for the average haunting things, he wanted to know all about the unique parts of the situation. Neil fading in and out was normal, but his color returning? Looking completely alive? Those were things Carl had never heard of. 

“Neil?” Andrew attempted to call him out. It had never worked before, Neil showed up when he wanted to not when he was wanted. 

King walked out of the bedroom and hopped up on Andrew’s lap.

“Where’s your best friend today?” Andrew asked the cat, getting a meow in return. “Is he ignoring you too?”

“If he’s as sentient as you claim,” Carl said interrupting their staring contest, “I think he can choose when he’s seen.”

“He said he’d never been seen before.” Andrew thought back to their first meeting. “He seemed surprised the first time.”

“Yes, of course.” Carl nodded. “Then he had no control, but now? You’ve humanized him. You’ve taken an impression of a soul and turned it into a real person.”

“He’s a ghost.” 

Carl snorted out a laugh. “You said it yourself. He’s more alive than anyone you know.”

In the end, Carl left with no data. Not a single reading on his fancy machine. Not a single flicker of energy in his over sensitive nerves or whatever the fuck mediums used. Andrew paid hundreds of dollars for nothing at all.

“Nothing is something,” Carl said as he was leaving. “My equipment doesn’t react at all in your apartment, it’s a complete dead zone. I’ve never seen one of those before. This equipment is so sensitive the earth’s gravity triggers it, and yet not a single crackle here.”

Carl asked Andrew to come out to the parking lot with him. He turned on his equipment again there and it lit up, everything crackled and fizzed. The dials went up and down quickly before equalizing with a low hum. 

“This is a normal reading,” Carl said with a smile. “You, boy, have an anomaly.”

Andrew went back up the stairs and threw himself down on the couch. Within seconds he could feel rage coming at him in waves, when he looked up Neil was standing over him looking livid.

“Oh, now you show up,” Andrew said calmly. 

“What the fuck was that Andrew,” Neil demanded. “Are you trying to get rid of me? Are you trying to kill me? Newsflash asshole I’m already dead.”

His voice got louder and louder with every word until he was yelling. 

“I thought we were friends.” Neil paced around the room with his hands ripping at his hair. “I thought we were friends. Do you hate me that much? So much that you want me dead? AGAIN?”

The light bulb blew out, making Neil jump. He was completely solid now. Andrew got up from the couch and slowly walked over, removing Neil’s hands from his hair when he got there. Neil had a wild look in his eye, the kind Andrew had only seen in trapped animals fighting for their lives. When Neil tried to punch his chest Andrew grabbed both of his wrists and pulled him close so he wouldn’t get injured. Neil dropped his head to his chest and sobbed. 

“Do you hate me that much?” Neil asked between sobs. “That you want me gone?”

“I don’t hate you.” Andrew was surprised at how true that was. In the last six weeks, they had become closer than Andrew had ever been with another friend. “And I do not want you to leave. I just wanted to know what is going on here. If you’re okay.”

“I’m fine.” Neil pulled back and wiped his eyes. 

Andrew looked him over. “I don’t know about that.”

For a moment they just stared at each other, and then Andrew had an idea. 

“Come with me,” he said, pulling Neil’s sleeve. 

Neil had always been wearing the same faded gray long sleeve shirt and oversized blue jeans every time Andrew saw him, but now he was as real as another person. Andrew led him into his bedroom and searched his closet until he found something more suitable for Neil to wear. 

He threw a nice all-black outfit at him. “Here, try this on.”

“I um..” Neil wrapped his arms around his stomach and bit his lip. “I have scars. I don’t know how being dead will affect this... turn around.”

Andrew raised an eyebrow but did what he was told. Only his ghost could be a miracle of the supernatural world and also have modesty issues. When Neil gave him permission Andrew turned around again. The shirt was a bit loose on Neil’s small frame, but that seemed to be his preferred style. 

“How do I look?” Neil asked as he patted his chest and legs checking the fit. 

Andrew shrugged. “Better than you did before.”

“Do you think they’ll stick?” Neil pulled at the sleeve. “Like when I leave will they leave too? And that about my old clothes, what will happen to them?”

Andrew looked at the pile of clothes on the floor, kicking them with the side of his foot. “I have no idea.”

Neil sat in the living room and pet the cat while Andrew made himself lunch. By the time Andrew was done making a quick sandwich, Neil was gone, as were his clothes. He checked the bedroom and there at the foot of his bed were Neil’s old clothes. After lunch, Andrew threw them in the wash and waited for him to return. 

He’d gone into the day hoping for answers from the medium and all he got were more questions from the bald man. One thing he knew now for sure though, Neil’s physicality was connected to his emotions. The stronger the emotion the more human he became. 

Neil got more active after that. He was almost always around now, rarely fading out when Andrew was home. He started to think of the times Neil was gone as him sleeping, recharging. Since he was up the entire night while Andrew slept he had to sleep sometime, that is if ghosts need that sort of thing.

They spent the weekend hanging out, but Andrew felt like Neil was still mad at him. He did petty things like throw all the clean towels on the floor in the bathroom and put dish soap in the dishwasher. Neil ended up helping to clean that mess up because it was worse than he had expected. They had to lock King in the bathroom until it was done because she tried to play with the bubbles.

On Monday, Andrew went to work and had a normal day, no researching ghosts on his lunch break or trying to find someone to look at his house. The hour dragged on without his usual activities keeping him busy. He decided to stop and get two copies of the next book in the series they were reading, one to read at work and one for Neil to look over while he was bored. Neil tended to get bored easily when Andrew was gone, and now that he was annoyed with Andrew again he needed something to keep him busy instead of being petty and causing a ruckus. 

The first thing Andrew noticed when he walked into the apartment was that it was hazy, full of smoke. Not enough to set off the sprinklers, but enough that Andrew could see and smell it. 

“Neil?” He called out. “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” Neil said back immediately, sitting up on the couch and looking significantly too innocent. “On an unrelated note, you need a new microwave.”

“Neil. What did you do?”

Andrew walked over to the microwave and opened it to see a charred looking fork sitting in the middle of the blackened inside. He bit his cheek to keep himself from reacting. Neil appeared from behind him and looked over his shoulder.

“So today I learned why you’re not supposed to put metal in electrical sockets and microwaves.”

Andrew took a deep breath. “You did not stick a fork in a socket did you?”

“Nope.” Neil shrugged. “Just a penny. There were sparks but nothing caught on fire. The microwave was way worse.”

“I can see that.” Andrew rubbed his hands over his face. “Why did you think either of those things was a good idea?”

“Well, my mom always told me not to do them, but she never said why! How was I supposed to know it would catch on fire?”

“Did you ever think ‘hey maybe my mom told me not to do this for a reason’? Or maybe testing on my things would be a bad decision?” Andrew turned to glare at him.

Neil just shrugged. “Nope.”

“Do you have any common sense? At all?”

“Nope.” Neil shrugged again. At least he was being honest today.

Andrew opened the windows and grabbed his keys as he headed out the door. “Don’t let any robbers in while I’m gone, dummy.”

“Where are you going?” Neil asked with a pout. 

“To go buy a new microwave, where do you think?”

Neil huffed and threw himself on the couch. In the chaos Andrew had forgotten to give him the book, so he threw it at Neil’s chest then slammed the door. He smiled to himself when he heard Neil yell at him for being a dick. If anyone was being a dick today, it was Neil. Why did he have to make the stupidest and pettiest decisions?

Andrew stopped walking. Because he was stuck at 19. Neil would always be a teenager, forced to make stupid impulsive decisions out of boredom simple because he died before his brain was fully developed. 

On his way to the store, Andrew got a call from his brother, who was not happy to hear that Andrew was staying home every night and not making any friends. He debated telling him about Neil; he knew that if Aaron thought he was having a mental breakdown, he would drop everything to help him, and he didn’t need that. Neil was a friend just as much as Renee or Kevin were in college. More so even because Andrew was more open with the dead boy than he was with them. In the end, he decided not to tell Aaron anything, Nicky would be much more open to the idea. 

Of course, as soon as he thought that Nicky called to. 

“Hello,” Andrew said dryly. 

“Hey! Andrew! How’s it going?” Nicky sounded too happy. The fake sort of cheer that meant he was hiding something. “How are you liking your apartment?”

“It’s good, haunted but good.”

“Haunted?” Nicky choked out a dry laugh. “So those stories were real? Cause like I was looking up your area the other day and all these ghost stories from your apartment popped up. Super creepy.”

Andrew rolled his eyes. “He’s not creepy, he’s a fucking dumbass. Ruined my microwave today.”

“Umm... Andrew?” Nicky lost his fake cheer suddenly. “Are you okay? Aaron said you’re just going to work and then going straight home. Do you need anything?”

“I’m doing great,” Andrew said. And he was being honest, he enjoyed living with Neil even if he was stupid and petty and ruined perfectly good kitchen appliances. 

“I’m getting worried about you. Roland said you haven’t been to the club since you moved, and Renee said you’re barely talking to her anymore.”

Andrew sighed and ran his hands over his face. The real reason for Nicky’s call and fake cheer now clear. Roland was a bartender Andrew used to hook up with in college, he wasn’t in college anymore. He had a job and an apartment and a life now. In some way, he had outgrown that relationship without even realizing it enough to officially break it off. 

“Nicky, trust me. I’m doing well, okay?” Andrew never lied, but he decided a bending of the truth would be allowed. “I had someone over this weekend.”

“Oh, my god that’s great, so you’re making friends?” Nicky cheered. “I knew Aaron was exaggerating.”

Nicky didn’t need to know that the ‘someone’ he had over was a medium he paid to tell him if his house was properly haunted. He was not willing to risk Nicky calling him crazy, not that he thought he would Nicky was surprisingly spiritual and probably believed in ghosts, it just wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have then.

He hung up and went about his shopping trip, buying an expensive microwave that would hopefully not be ruined anytime soon. Andrew looked around the store to find other things to keep Neil busy. Gathering up slime making kits and children’s crafts, as well as a few new video games to keep him entertained. On the way out, he stopped by the pet section and got a new cat tower for King too. Somehow Andrew found himself spoiling his ghost and his cat more than he had his cousin and brother when they lived together. 

“Neil,” Andrew called when he walked in the door carrying the box for the cat tree. “Will you set this up for me?”

“I thought you were buying a microwave.” Neil appeared out of nowhere connecting his body with his voice.

“I did. I also bought something for King since she has to stay with your annoying ass all day.” Andrew shoved the box toward Neil. “Make yourself useful and put this together while I go get everything else.”

Neil flopped down on the couch. “I’m not your employee, you can’t tell me what to do.”

“You ruined my microwave and put a penny in an electrical socket,” Andrew said, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow. “The least you could do is build the cat a place to hide from you.”

Neil rolled his eyes and slid off the couch onto the floor. Andrew watched him struggle with the tape on the box for a minute, waiting for him to realize he needed scissors. Neil was too stubborn for that, he fought the tape until it finally gave way and then he cheered in victory. With the box open and Neil occupied Andrew decided to go get the microwave from the car. They spent the next hour working side by side on their projects. Andrew fought with styrofoam to get the microwave out while Neil fought with carpet-covered wood pieces to build a cat tree. 

Andrew finished his job first, setting it up and putting a sticky note on the front saying Neil wasn’t allowed to touch it. When he came back from taking the ruined one down to the trash, Neil was finished with his job too. He stood proudly next to the cat tree while King sat on the top and nudged his arm. 

“Perfect,” Andrew said as he walked over to pet King. “Maybe now you’ll stop being a menace and sitting on the light above the bookshelf.”

Neil booped King on the nose, he liked touching her constantly when he was capable of doing it. “Don’t listen to your dad little kitty. He’s just grumpy. I ruined his things.”

“Things? Plural?” Andrew asked.

“Hmm? What?” Neil feigned ignorance. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Neil.” Andrew glared at him. “What else did you fuck with?”

“Nothing.” He flopped down on the couch and reached for the Xbox controller. “Nothing at all.”

Andrew took a deep breath and looked around the apartment, trying to spot anything else out of place. 

“Okay fine, I may have deleted your saved game on Skyrim on accident.”

“On accident?” Andrew pinched the bridge of his nose. “You have to go through multiple screens to do that. How did you accidentally delete it? Do you know how many hours of playtime I had on that file?”

Neil snorted. “Yeah, a lot. Like a lot a lot. You need to get a life. And I was trying to delete my game but then I deleted yours on accident.”

Andrew flopped down on the couch next to Neil. “You are the worst roommate I have ever had.”

“I doubt that’s true.”

“Did you have any time to read today between fucking up my stuff and trying to light my apartment on fire?” 

They talked about the book they were reading as Andrew ate dinner, then they settled into the couch to play some video games. Andrew wasn’t as mad about losing his Skyrim saves as he let Neil believe. Video games weren’t that important to him, but he was tired of Neil messing with his things and breaking them, so he acted more annoyed than he felt. Hopefully, Neil would take the not too subtle hint and stop ruining everything. 

Life with a ghost was annoying, but it was also fun. It wasn’t even the ghost part that was annoying; it was just Neil. He found ways to push Andrew’s buttons and annoy him to a degree no one ever had before. They played video games, watched tv, and read together, sometimes Neil would even help Andrew cook. In a failed experiment they tried to see if Neil could eat when he was solid and corporeal, but as soon as the food touched his tongue he flickered out of sight for a moment. When he came back, he said it was the worst thing he had ever tasted in his existence.

At the urging of Nicky, Andrew joined a reading club at the library. It was mostly full of little old ladies who did their knitting while they discussed the latest mystery they were reading. At home, Andrew gave Neil the book to read too and took his comments back to the group. He said the thoughts like they were all his own and it was interesting that they could somehow tell them apart. They loved all of Neil’s comments and rarely liked Andrew’s own. 

One day in November, a week before Thanksgiving when Andrew was set to leave Neil overnight for the first time since moving in—which he was dreading because Neil came up with all sorts of things to do to keep himself busy while Andrew was a work and an overnight trip was bound to be worse—Aaron showed up on Andrew’s doorstep. He had his hand raised to knock when Andrew opened the door to go to work. 

“Wrong side of the state,” Andrew said as he shouldered his brother out of the way and turned to lock his door. “She kick you out?” 

The word ‘she’ was referring to Aaron’s long-time girlfriend Katelyn, but Andrew refused to say her name because it would acknowledge that he knew it after years of pretending not to. They were engaged and Andrew was glad that Aaron was in a happy, healthy relationship, however, that didn’t mean he had to like her. 

“Can I not stop by and see my brother?” Aaron asked. 

They looked each other up and down. No one drove two hours just to pop in for a quick visit. Andrew waited until Aaron started to fidget and then walked past him. 

“If you make me late for work, I will ruin your wedding.” It was an empty threat, Andrew would never do something to jeopardize Aaron’s happiness. 

Aaron followed along a step behind him as he walked to his car. As Andrew unlocked the car door Aaron reached for the passenger handle. 

Andrew stared at him “Who said you can come?” 

“Seriously?” Aaron blinked at him. “You locked me out of your house, what else am I supposed to do all day?”

“That’s a good question, what was your plan here exactly? Show up on my doorstep at 8 in the morning and then what? I call into work or some shit?” Andrew crossed his arms and leaned on the car. 

“Yeah, something like that.”

“Well, too fucking bad.” Andrew opened his door and climbed in. “Call ahead next time.”

“Nicky told me you’re talking about some shitty ghost haunting your ass,” Aaron admitted. Andrew leaned over the passenger seat to open his door. “He called me last night and told me, so I came as soon as I could. I just want to make sure you’re okay. You know, not having a mental breakdown.”

“I’m not.” Andrew turned the car on and pulled out of his parking spot. “And yes my apartment is haunted. Did Nicky not tell you about all the blog posts?”

“Oh yeah, those sure seem scary. A woman lost her keys a few too many times for her liking and moved out because obviously a ghost is fucking with her.” Aaron crossed his arms and leaned against the door. “Where are we going?”

“I’m going to work. I don’t give a fuck what you do all day.” Andrew kept his eyes on the road, but he knew the face Aaron made in response. “I’m off at 4. If you’re not back by them I’m going home without you.”

Unfortunately, Aaron was sitting in the waiting room of his office building at exactly 4 pm when he walked into the lobby. “What do you even do here?”

“I’m training to be a compliance manager.”

“Which means?” 

Andrew’s boss Roger looked up from where he was standing a few feet away. He looked over at them then introduced himself to Aaron. 

“Andrew’s the best we have. Businesses have to deal with a lot of state and federal regulations and his job is to make sure we don’t do anything we aren’t supposed to.” He gestured to Andrew, aware that he would not accept a pat on the shoulder like he was fond of doing to everyone else. “I’ve been in this business a while and I’ve never met someone who can catch a flaw so quickly. This kid has some natural talent at catching procedural errors.”

“Wow,” Aaron said dryly. “You have the most stereotypical office job I have ever heard of.” 

“Good night, Rodger,” Andrew said to his boss. “I apologize for my brother’s annoyance.”

Roger laughed. “You have to admit he has a point there.”

On the way home, Andrew thought about dropping Aaron off on a street corner somewhere and making him walk home. Since the medium, Andrew hadn’t had a guest over without letting Neil know in advance. He didn’t have guests over in general, but now and then a faucet leaked or his smoke detector battery needed to be replaced and the complex sent someone up to fix it. 

“Neil,” Andrew said as he opened the door. “Aaron came with me today.”

He was nowhere in sight, yet Andrew could hear him knocking around. He never went into the bathroom so Andrew checked his bedroom first, coming up empty with Aaron staring at him. Since Aaron didn’t believe in ghosts, he figured telling him the story would be pointless. Seeing was believing after all. 

“Neil?” Andrew repeated.

The bathroom door swung open, revealing Neil with his hand in his hair pulling at the root. “What the fuck, Andrew? Look at my roots.”

Neil turned back to look at the mirror, so Andrew stepped in the bathroom behind him. 

“What about them?”

“Why didn’t you tell me I had roots?” Neil pulled on his hair again, making eye contact in the mirror. “This is like four inches of grow out.”

“And?”

“And when I died, my hair was completely black. Black, Andrew. As in no roots.” Neil spun around. “You’ve been letting me walk around looking like an idiot for months.”

“Andrew, you could have just said you have a boyfriend instead of making up a ghost story,” Aaron said from behind him.

Neil flickered out of existence as the light bulb above their head shattered. Aaron screamed, and Andrew jumped backward. When he turned around Aaron was clutching his chest, face pale in the dull light. He went completely still in shock. 

Andrew shook him by the shoulders. “Breathe.”

Aaron gasped, sucking in air. When he could talk, he stumbled over his words. “You... he... what the fuck Andrew.”

“Now do you believe me?”

Andrew didn’t have time to think about the implications of what Neil had said. Has his hair really grown? Was he aging somehow? He pushed it out of his mind as he led Aaron over to the couch and had him sit with his head between his knees. Aaron still wasn’t breathing properly and looked as if he could pass out at any moment. Where Andrew had been confused by his first ghost encounter Aaron was terrified. There was no soda in the house so Andrew made him a cup of tea and loaded it up with sugar to help his body work off the shock. Having never dealt with anything like this before Andrew made it up as he went along. After giving Aaron the tea he sat down next to him and patted his shoulder awkwardly. 

“You have a fucking ghost, Andrew. In your house.” Aaron’s voice was shot from his scream and everything came out as barely more than a whisper. “Is he alive?”

“No. Ghosts are generally dead.” Andrew was sure of his response. 

Aaron didn’t look convinced. “He said his hair grew. Dead people don’t have hair growth.”

He had a point there but Andrew wasn’t sure how correct his conclusion was. “The fuck do you know about ghosts?”

“Where is he now?” Aaron looked around the room, eyes wide as they darted over every surface. 

“I have no idea. Wherever he goes when he’s not here.” Andrew paused and listened to see if Neil was actually gone, or if he was hiding in the bedroom. “Neil? Are you okay?”

Aaron glared at him as they both sat as still as statues, waiting. 

And waiting. 

Minutes passed, but neither moved a muscle to do anything other than breathe. Aaron was waiting to see if it was all real, while Andrew was waiting to see if Neil was alright. He was going to be pissed if Aaron scared him away permanently. Sadly, or not depending on how he looked at it, Neil was his closest friend. Losing him would be like losing a real person from his life, because as far as he was concerned Neil was a real person. 

“Neil?” Andrew tried again, he could hear his voice growing desperate.

A flash of movement in the corner of his eye made Andrew look toward the kitchen. He could see Neil’s unruly hair sticking out from where he was hiding behind the wall. Instead of calling him out Andrew let him be. 

Neil was there.

That’s all that mattered. 

“Apologize,” Andrew said under his breath. 

Aaron looked at him with wild eyes. “Umm... Hi, Neil. I’m... uhh... I’m Aaron, Andrew’s brother. Sorry for scaring you earlier.”

Neil poked his head out for a moment, just long enough to catch Andrew’s eye. He looked more spooked than Andrew had ever seen him. Wild eyes, wild hair. There was something almost inhuman about his pale off white skin. 

Oh fuck, Andrew thought. He died in that bathroom. Suddenly all the pieces fell together. Neil wasn’t avoiding the bathroom to give Andrew privacy, he was doing it to keep himself from reliving everything. If this was the first time Neil had gone back in there since he died, and Aaron scared the hell out of him, it was bound to be just as traumatic as the actual event. 

“Neil.” It was the last time he was going to try to talk to him. If he needed space Andrew would give it to him. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Neil croaked. It could not have been less convincing. He cleared his throat. “I’m fine.”

“Ummm.... hi,” Aaron said looking around Andrew. There was nothing to see but Aaron tried to get a look, anyway.

Neil stepped out from around the wall running a hand through his multicolored hair. “Hi.”

“So you’re a ghost?”

Andrew rubbed his hands over his face, Aaron was clearly still in shock. 

“I guess so.” Neil walked farther into the room and sat down in the middle of the floor, clicking his tongue for the cat. “King, baby, where did you go?”

King crawled out from behind the couch, sauntering over to Neil and merping as her head hit his hand. 

“Sorry for scaring you,” Neil said in his cat voice. “Aaron was being a meanie head.”

Andrew snorted. King and Neil ignored them as they comforted each other. Aaron leaned forward, tilting his head as he observed them. He had his thinking face on, furrowed brows as his eyes looked all around Neil and the cat examining them. Neil could touch King, which meant he was feeling a lot, Andrew just wasn’t sure which emotion it was. There was a chance he was still scared, or he was excited, but Andrew thought it might be something else. With the instances of him fading away still decreasing he wondered if Neil was here to stay if someday he’d stopped disappearing altogether. A shock like Aaron making him blow out a lightbulb should have resulted in a bigger reaction than him leaving for just a few minutes. The time Andrew had called him his birth name certainly had. 

As Aaron observed Neil, and Neil ignored them, Andrew thought through all of his time with Neil. He brought the first time he saw Neil’s full coloring to mind; he had never thought about it before because he had assumed Neil wouldn’t be able to change. He was dead after all. But now that he was thinking about it there were some big changes. Neil was right about the hair growth, his roots hadn’t been nearly that bad a few months ago. There were little things too, he had some stubble now that hadn’t been there, his hair was curlier and more dramatic after months of being neglected, and if Andrew looked closely, he could see some wrinkles around his eyes. 

“Neil, how old are you?” Aaron asked. 

“19,” Neil said without looking away from the cat.

“No, you were 19 when you died,” Andrew interjected, “how old are you now?”

That got Neil to look up. “Excuse me?”

“Your hair is growing, your beard is growing, you’re aging.”

Neil laughed. The sad sort of laugh that came right before a cry. “Your imagination is wild, Andrew.”

Aaron looked between them, whatever he saw on Andrew’s face made his soften. “No, I think he’s right.”

“Sure, sure. If you say so.” Neil huffed out a laugh again. 

He picked up the cat and walked away, hiding in Andrew’s room without them. The door didn’t close, so Andrew decided to follow, and Aaron did too.

“I can prove it.” Andrew wasn’t sure his idea would actually work, but he wanted to try it. “It may take a while to see results though.”

Neil was sitting in the middle of Andrew’s unmade bed with the cat snuggled up on his lap. “What? How?”

“I’m going to get some hair dye and fix your roots.” Andrew turned to grab his things and go to the store. “What color do you want?”

Neil and Aaron followed him, looking confused.

“Do you think hair dye will work?” Aaron asked. “He’s a ghost, Andrew.”

“He can change his clothes and they disappear when he does,” Andrew said, turning to look at them. “Why wouldn’t it work?”

“That’s a bit different,” Neil said, biting his lip. “That’s not changing me physically, it’s just adding something to my body. Hair dye physically changes my hair.” 

Andrew reached out his hand for Neil’s hair, far enough away that Neil had to lean forward for him to actually touch it. The dyed part was rough and damaged, with more than a few knots. The auburn part was soft, completely undamaged by the dye. 

“It feels real to me. If I can touch it so can a chemical.” Andrew pulled out a hair to prove his point. 

“Ow!” Neil yelped. “What was that for?”

“We can touch, I can pull your hair, you can feel pain. That seems pretty real to me.” Andrew grabbed his keys and turned toward the door once again. 

“Wait,” Aaron said. 

When Andrew turned around Aaron went, looking at him like a puzzle to be solved. 

“Go get my backpack from my car,” Aaron ordered. 

Andrew was so surprised about Aaron giving him an order that he did it without questioning him. In their relationship, Andrew was the only one who gave orders. 

When he came back Neil was sitting on the stool shirtless. He looked uncomfortable, but Aaron was in med student mode, he wasn’t even looking at the scars. Andrew, however, was. Neil survived a hell of a lot before he was murdered. A hell of a lot. 

He got angry thinking about it. The amount of life stolen from this kid. 

Andrew decided to stop thinking of him as a kid. It looked like he was aging and if that was true Neil was only a year younger than him, hardly a kid anymore. Andrew sat down on the couch as Aaron pulled out a pair of rubber gloves and his stethoscope. As a first-year med student he didn’t deal with more than classroom lectures and cadavers, but he had the tools, anyway. Nicky had gifted them to him when he found out he got into med school. 

“Take a deep breath,” Aaron said as he placed the stethoscope on Neil’s chest. “Again. Mhm. One more time for me.”

Neil fidgeted with his hands when Aaron was done. Aaron’s face said the puzzle just got more confusing as he walked around Neil in a circle. 

“You breathe, but you don’t have a heartbeat.” Aaron chewed on his cheek. “Can I prick your skin?”

Neil sat up straighter. “What?”

“I want to see if you bleed. Just a small prick with a sewing needle.”

Neil looked at Aaron then Andrew and back again. 

“I do,” he said eventually. “King scratched me once.”

“Hmm, interesting.” Aaron rubbed his lip with his thumb before pulling out a notebook and writing everything down. 

“Maybe Carl knows something,” Andrew suggested.

“No. I don’t like him,” Neil said with a glare. 

Aaron looked between them. “Who’s Carl?”

“The medium I hired to look at my apartment a couple of months ago,” Andrew admitted. “Neil was a dick and didn’t show himself to him.”

Neil narrowed his eyes. “Andrew was a dick and didn’t tell me he was coming over.”

“Okay.” Aaron held his hands in the air. “I didn’t mean to start a lover’s quarrel.”

Andrew rolled his eyes. Aaron didn’t even know he was gay, not for sure anyway, so he was sure that comment was meant to be rude. Neil looked between them again, surprise on his face.

“What?” He asked. 

“Are you two not?” Aaron gestured between them. “Okay, my bad. It just seemed like something was going on here.”

Not purposely rude then. Aaron genuinely thought they were dating. Neil was his type if he was honest. Hot, smart, not intimidating, hot-headed in the best way, funny, entertaining. And the best part was that spending time with him was calming instead of draining. Andrew stopped that train of thought before it went any farther. Dating a ghost who couldn’t leave his house wasn't healthy for either of them. 

“What?” Neil asked again. “Why?”

“Andrew’s happy here.” Aaron looked at Andrew with a soft smile on his face. “I’ve never seen him so at peace.”

Neil smiled too. “Yeah, he’s a lot less grumpy than he was when we met.”

“Okay,” Andrew said, turning toward the door again. “That’s enough of that let’s go get some hair dye. What color Neil?”

“Why doesn’t he come and pick it out himself?” Aaron asked.

“I can’t leave,” Neil said at the same time Andrew said, “he’s stuck in here.”

Aaron looked at the door, his jaw tensing. He was thinking, always one to be dramatic with his facial expressions. “Have you tried?”

Neil huffed. “Of course I have.”

“Wait, Neil,” Andrew said, “when was the last time you tried? Was it before or after you started being able to touch King and I?”

“It was... it was...” Neil froze, looking at the door like it was the first time he had ever seen it. “It was before you moved in.”

Andrew walked over to the door and opened it, standing out of the way so Neil could pass him. Attempt to pass him. When Neil didn’t move Aaron walked past too. King was eyeing the door to make her great escape, but something was stopping her from going through with it. 

“Neil?” Andrew asked. 

Neil took one step forward. Then another, pausing just before the doorway. He held his hand out but stopped before it went out the door. Andrew and Aaron both froze as they waited. 

Seconds ticked by, feeling like years. 

And then Neil moved again, shooting his hand forward.

He gasped and laughed when it went out the door. Andrew reached out and grabbed it, gently pulling Neil forward. 

Out the door.

Neil laughed and fell into Andrew hugging him. Andrew let it happen, hugging him back. They laughed together for a moment, then Aaron decided to join in on the hug. He wrapped one arm around Andrew and the other around Neil as he started to laugh too. 

“I did it,” Neil said, misty-eyed. “I walked out the door.”

“You fucking did it,” Andrew echoed. 

“Thank you,” Neil said, “you’re amazing. Both of you. I wouldn’t have done it without you.”

Aaron patted Neil on the back, removing his arms from the hug and walking away. “Let’s go, boys, we have hair dye to buy.”

Andrew had to go back in the apartment to get Neil some shoes and then they were off. 

In the store, Neil looked like a kid in Disneyland for the first time. Everything he looked at made his eyes shine and his smile widened. He reached out and touched everything he passed, enjoying the new environment. Andrew led him to the clothing section first, he didn’t have a huge budget to spend with Christmas coming up, but he could buy Neil some clothes for himself. 

Neil picked out soft baggy things, the same sort of things he stole from Andrew, but it was different because they were his. Aaron pitched in some money too, matching Andrew’s contribution and allowing Neil to get some shoes as well. 

They headed to the hair care section next. Aaron picked out color-safe shampoo and conditioner, the same ones Katelyn used, while Neil and Andrew stood in front of all the colors. Neil didn’t want his natural coloring back, he said he looked too much like his father, but he was done with black too. Instead, they settled on a mousy brown, having to buy some lightener as well to get the black out. 

Neil tried to put some of the clothes back when he saw the total, but neither Aaron nor Andrew allowed it. They each pitched in a hundred dollars and left just before Neil made a scene in the store. He lectured them on the way home instead, claiming two hundred dollars was too much to spend on a dead man’s wardrobe. Andrew claimed it was worth it to get his clothes back, but really it was because he had never allowed Andrew to buy clothes just for him, and now he would have his own possessions. 

When they got back Andrew sent Neil to shower, something he claimed he didn’t need to do. Since he had died, he had never showered and didn’t smell at all, his lack of sweating insured that. He needed to have clear hair for the dye to work well, so they insisted he followed the instructions on the box. 

“Holy shit, Andrew,” Neil said when he walked out of the bathroom wearing only a pair of basketball shorts after his shower. “That was fucking incredible. Why have I not tried that before?”

“That’s a great question,” Aaron said, wrinkling his nose. “I can’t believe that Andrew let you sit on his furniture without taking a shower for multiple years.” 

Neil stuck his tongue out at him. 

“That’s great, Neil.” Andrew rolled his eyes. “Now you know you can take a shower every day.”

Andrew had already prepped the lightener, so he got started right away when Neil sat down in front of him. They had watched a few videos of the process while Neil showered, and Andrew felt confident in what he was doing. It helped that Neil picked a brown dye, so they didn’t have to lighten it too much. Andrew worked the product through Neil’s hair, enjoying the deep sighs that came with it. 

Aaron caught his eye, sending him a questioning look. If Neil was aging. If Neil was no longer dependent on the apartment. Maybe something could happen between them. Someday. Once Neil was used to going out and had a real-life, not one fully dependent on Andrew. He took a deep breath, maybe not even then, he didn’t want Neil to feel like he owed him anything. 

They sat silently as Andrew worked, then played video games together as they waited the 15 minutes for the product to do its job. Andrew and Aaron played some more when Neil went wash the product out. They didn’t talk, but that was normal for them. Talking to anyone other than Neil was difficult for Andrew. 

When Neil came back out his hair was a terrible shade of orange, making Aaron laugh. Andrew let out a small huff of amusement. Neil ran his hands through his damp hair, a wild smile taking over his face.

“Let’s fix this mess,” Andrew said as he got up off the couch. “Last chance to back out of brown.”

“I like brown,” Neil said.

“Unfortunate.” Andrew shook the bottle with his gloved hands and started applying it. “Your natural hair color is so nice, and you choose to dye it a boring brown.”

“Some people like boring,” Neil said with a smile. “You’re boring and I like you.”

Aaron burst out laughing as Andrew rolled his eyes. 

“Shut up,” Andrew said to his brother. 

“You know what? He has a point.”

Andrew threw a towel at him. “I said shut up, Aaron.”

That made Aaron laugh harder.

A few minutes later they were back to playing video games as they waited the 20 minutes for the hair dye to work its magic. He hoped Neil liked it, not only because he didn’t want Neil to hate something he did, but because he wanted Neil to be comfortable in his own skin. Neil was almost giddy when he went to go wash the dye out, he was smiling more than Andrew had ever seen him smile before. 

Andrew wasn’t nervous as he waited for Neil to come back from the shower, but he wasn’t relaxed either. He needed to know if it worked. Maybe the lightener did, but the dye wouldn’t. How was he supposed to know the biology of ghost hair? Andrew’s leg bounced up and down as he waited, causing Aaron to send him a look. 

Neil opened the door ending their staring contest. He walked out in his new joggers with a loose v-neck shirt, spinning around in a circle to show off his new look.

“How do I look?” Neil asked. 

“Great, that’s a good color on you,” Aaron said.

In his quest to check Neil out Andrew had almost forgotten about his hair. It was still wet, dragging the curls down, but it was a bright, attractive brown. For all the grief Andrew gave him for picking the color, it was actually lovely.

“What he said.” Andrew turned his attention to the cat as she started rubbing herself on Neil’s new pants. 

“Hi, baby,” Neil cooed. “Do you like my new hair color?”

The cat licked a drop of water off of Neil’s cheek, making him laugh. 

“Yeah, I like it too.”

It was too late to send Aaron on his long drive home, so Andrew gave him his bed, and settled in on the couch. He had to work in the morning and needed to get some real sleep after his unbelievable day. Neil held off playing video games, but Andrew could still hear him puttering around in the kitchen as he drifted off. It amazed him that Neil’s little noises now helped him sleep, instead of keeping him awake like they used to. 

The next morning, Aaron went home as Andrew headed off to work. He said goodbye to Neil like they were old friends instead of having just met. Andrew had thought it was all some sort of fever dream when he woke up until he saw Neil reading a book at the kitchen table and heard Aaron in the shower. 

After that night, Andrew had no problem leaving Neil alone for a couple of days so he could head to family thanksgiving. Aaron agreed not to tell Nicky anything else about his ghost, so it was a calming ghost-free getaway. The only thing he worried about was Neil burning his house down. 

When he got back from the holiday, he went to his cell phone provider and added another number to his line, getting Neil the newest smartphone. It would stop Andrew from worrying in two ways: first, it meant they could stay in contact, secondly, it meant Neil would be busy playing around on his phone instead of fucking up Andrew’s apartment. 

As time went on Neil started to go out more. He didn’t like leaving the house alone though, and almost never left more than an hour or two. Soon enough, Andrew could leave him his debit card and a grocery list and come home to a fully stocked fridge. For some reason, Neil was against the independence, but Andrew pushed him to be able to do things on his own. 

Andrew went to Aaron’s for a week over Christmas and had no problems leaving Neil alone for that long. He had his phone if they needed to talk, and King could keep him in line. An added bonus was that Andrew didn’t have to hire a pet sitter. They texted all day every day, enough so that Nicky started asking if Andrew had a girlfriend or boyfriend back home. Andrew immediately said no, while Aaron said yes. It led to a bickering match that Nicky called fondly sibling-like, which made them turn their bitterness on him. It was an entertaining evening for Andrew. 

When he got home Andrew decided to open an online banking account for Neil to use. While Andrew was gone he’d gotten bored and started doing some transcription work online, making a little more than minimum wage, but it was more to keep him busy, anyway. The businesses all paid via PayPal, so Andrew let Neil use his since he didn’t have an id or social security number to get his own bank accounts. Once the new account was open and connected to the Paypal account Andrew had Neil change all the passwords so he was in charge of the accounts himself. 

It was a risky move, giving Neil the ability to fuck with his credit, but he knew Neil hated spending money and he trusted him to spend only what he had. It gave Neil even more freedom, he could go to the store without having to stick to the budget Andrew gave him and he could buy his own clothes without feeling guilty about spending Andrew’s money. The more freedom Andrew forced Neil to take, the closer they got. 

Neil started coming with Andrew to his book club. It took the ladies less than five minutes to figure out that Andrew had been giving them all of Neil’s funny commentary. They ate everything Neil said up, laughing along with every one-liner. Andrew sat back and watched. Getting Neil back into society wasn’t easy, he was skittish on his best day and paranoid on his worst, but they both enjoyed book club. Andrew barely had to speak anymore because Neil kept the ladies chatting through the night. 

At the end of February, Janice—the head of the group—walked over to Andrew as they were packing up to leave. Neil was being chatted up by a 75-year-old woman enjoying having all of his attention on her. Andrew smiled at the sight. 

“Your boyfriend’s doing well here,” Janice said with a smile. “He was so shy the first time he came, look at him now.”

Andrew ignored the first part of her comment. “Yeah, he enjoys it here.”

“My granddaughter has social anxiety too. Smart of you to bring his comments when he couldn’t, we all felt like we already knew him.”

“Thank you.” Andrew tilted his head as he watched Neil talking. 

He had never thought of his having trouble out and about as more than an adjustment to being back in the human world after so long stuck in the apartment, but looking back it made sense. Neil didn’t like people any more than Andrew did. He looked over and caught Andrew’s eye giving him a small smile.

“He’s pretty handsome too,” Janice said when she caught Andrew looking at him. 

Andrew huffed out a small laugh. “That’s an understatement.”

On the way home, Andrew thought about what she said. Neil wasn’t dependent on him anymore. He had his own job, making enough money to live on since he didn’t have to eat and they had their own bank accounts. Neil demanded he pay some bills too, so Andrew got the rent while Neil got everything else, like phone and internet. Since Andrew made a lot more than Neil did they were spending the same proportion of their income. 

Somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas Neil had stopped fading out. He was always around now, which was weird because he didn’t sleep. There were times Neil would zone out, staring at the wall or the TV for a few hours without doing anything. Andrew liked to think of those times as Neil sleeping with his eyes open. He’d still respond if Andrew talked to him, but then he’d just go back to zoning out. After a little while, Neil’s zoning out schedule matched up with Andrew’s sleep schedule. Neil needed less than Andrew did a day though, so he still played video games or got some work done while Andrew slept. 

Andrew didn’t feel like he would be using Neil if he kissed him, but he had no idea about his sexuality. Neil didn’t like people in general, so it was impossible to tell. He could feel Neil examining him on the drive home, after book club they usually talked for hours, but today Andrew was silent. 

Neil waited until they were safe in their own home before asking. “What are you thinking about?”

“You?”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you.” Andrew took a step closer to Neil raising his hand to his cheek. 

He was surprised when Neil didn’t back away. Up close it was easy to see Neil aging, he had a wrinkle on his forehead he hadn’t in the beginning; he grew a patchy beard so he shaved every few days, and his roots were getting long enough that Andrew knew he was going to be asked to dye them in a few days. Neil didn’t need sleep, or food, but he was as human as Andrew was. 

Neil smiled shyly, pink coming to his cheeks as his eyes went down to Andrew’s lips and back up. Andrew tracked the movement, then copied it. Neil gasped when Andrew’s sight lingered on his mouth for a moment. 

“Neil,” Andrew said.

“Yes, Andrew.” Neil leaned forward, almost closing the gap. “Yes.”

Andrew could feel Neil’s breath on his face as he took the plunge. Neil kissed him like it brought him back to life. He was warm and solid, keeping his hands to himself until Andrew grabbed them and placed them in his hair. Andrew guided him back to the couch, straddling his lap when Neil sat down.

They stopped there, Andrew put his forehead against Neil’s and they breathed together for a while. When Andrew got ready for bed Neil followed, they brushed their teeth together and then laid down in Andrew’s bed with the cat at their feet. 

“Good night Andrew,” Neil said with a smile. 

“Good night Neil.” 

When he woke up the next morning Neil was still in his bed, sitting up and reading a book. Neil didn’t immediately notice him so he got to watch him read for a few minutes. Andrew never thought that he would be comfortable sleeping next to someone, let alone sleeping through them moving around enough to sit up and read, but here he was defying all expectations. Neil smiled when he finally noticed Andrew was awake.

“Good morning.”

Andrew yawned. “Good morning. How did you sleep?”

Neil rolled his eyes. “Very well thank you. You snore by the way.”

“No, I do not.” Andrew sat up as he glared. 

“Yes, you do.”

“Fuck off.” Andrew got up and went to his closet to grab his clothes and head to the shower. “I have to get ready for work.”

“I made you breakfast,” Neil said. When Andrew turned around, he was reading again. 

“You made me breakfast?”

“Mhm, don’t know how it tastes because I can't try it.” Neil turned the page. “But it smells very nice.”

Andrew walked over to Neil and bent down to give him a kiss on his hair. “Thank you.”

Neil smiled, finally looking up. “Anything for my boyfriend.”

“Who said I was your boyfriend?”

“Well we kissed, and I slept in your bed,” Neil said with a mischievous glint in his eye. “And our entire book club thinks so too.”

Andrew rolled his eyes. “Ah yes, chatty old women gossiping, how quaint.”

After his shower, Andrew headed out to eat his breakfast that Neil had cooked him. Neil sat with him at the table like he usually did and they chatted throughout the meal. As it was winding down Neil started to fidget with his hands. Andrew raised an eyebrow.

Neil sent him a small smile. “What do you think about moving?”

“Moving where?” Andrew asked. 

They still were unsure how connected he was to the apartment since he never went out for more than two hours at a time. However, Andrew thought it would be good for Neil to get out of the apartment where he died, start a new life in a home with less baggage. 

“Anywhere, there’s a two-bedroom open on the other side of the complex.” Neil picked at his nails. “And there are some open apartments across town.”

“Our rent will go up,” Andrew said. It wasn’t a big deal, Andrew had gotten a raise for being at his job for six months, and Neil worked almost full time on the computer now. “Do you want a two-bedroom? It would go up even more then.”

“It would be nice to have an office,” Neil said, growing more confident in the conversation. “And I can pay the difference in rent.”

“Lease is up in June.” Andrew got up and took his plate to the sink. “Do you want me to break it?”

Neil chewed on his lip as he thought about it. “June is fine.”

Andrew ran his hand through Neil’s hair. “June it is then.”

They spent all spring searching for the perfect apartment, finding one they both liked in the middle of May. It was a new build and twice as much as their current one, but it was worth it to get Neil into a new home that he loved. Andrew applied for it himself, just skating by their income requirements thanks to another raise. Neil was as human as anyone else, had been for months, but when they moved he got even brighter. It was like that apartment was holding him back. 

As they decorated the apartment with King bothering them, they discussed getting another cat. Andrew felt happier there too, he didn’t realize how much of a damper the old apartment was putting on their life until they got out of it. For the first time in his life, he truly felt at home. 

He had a cat he loved, a home he adored, and a boyfriend who was usually pretty okay.


End file.
